In a shocking 10-page confession that was read out in a Kiambu court, Joseph Kariuki Njuguna alias Karis narrated how Mwangi’s wife, Jane Muthoni, put the whole plan into motion.

This is what he recounted on that fateful day:

“In June last year, I received a call from a lady who identified as Damaris. We’d known each other for a long time and she told me she had a well paying job for me.

“She told me someone named Njiru would call me later with the details about the job. He called me a day later and asked me to meet him at Tree Shade Hotel in Kimbo. I found him in the company of Damaris,

“ They told me that the headteacher’s wife, introduced to me as Mwalimu, was the one behind the execution plot to kill her husband and had already paid a down payment of KSh 100,000.

“On November 4, 2016, I met with another man known as Gikuyu at Texas Bar in Kiria-ini. We were joined by Njiru and Mwalimu who informed us that she had a new plan of poisoning her husband.

“The following day, she called us with instructions to meet her at Urithi near Ndarugo. She drove in with her unconscious husband and we boarded the car. She drove to a forest where Gikuyu put a sisal rope around Mwangi’s neck and removed him from the car.

“Mwalimu remained in the car as we took Mwangi deep into the thicket where we tied his hands, tightened the rope around his neck and hanged him on a tree. He was later found dead.

“When we returned to where the car was, we found Mwalimu gone, Efforts to trace her so that she could pay us our balance of KSh 300,000 were unsuccessful because she switched off the phone she’d been using during the deal,” said Njuguna.

This confession was read out by State Counsel Catherine Mwaniki on Tuesday, January 31, 2017, and Njuguna pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter.

Kiambu High Court Judge Joel Ngugu reduced his charges from murder.

Earlier on, the deceased’s wife claimed to have had nothing with her husband’s murder.